Julius Zieget Memorabilia

Practiced as an engineer, lawyer and public official, Julius Zieget began his nearly 40-year association with the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1928 when he was appointed Secretary of the corporation. In 1934 he also assumed the role of Treasurer. Upon his retirement in May 1964, Museum President R. Sturgis Ingersoll described Zieget as a devoted watchdog of the treasury. That year Zieget and his wife gifted to the Museum their collection of Shaker furniture, books and other objects. The collection was included in the Museum's 1962 Shaker exhibition.

Born in Russia in 1904 (or 1908), Louis Hirshman worked actively in Philadelphia as a caricaturist. His rendering of the ballerina Catherine Littlefield in 1938 so outraged the dancer that she reportedly marched into the Artists' Union, tore the drawing in half and slapped Hirshman. Hirshman also designed at least two posters for the WPA War Services Project. His "Portrait of Einstein" was gifted to the Museum in 1977. In addition to wood and glass, Hirshman used a brush, mop head, abacus and pad of paper to render the great physicist. Hirshman died in 1986.